Janet Quin-Harkin (37 page)

By the end of the day she was able to collect the first of her new outfits from the dressmaker and although she thought privately that she looked rather like a ship in full sail, at least she no longer looked shabby. Now that she had city clothes, she was emboldened to send a card to Mark Hopkins. A cordial message was returned, inviting her to dinner at Brown’s Hotel, just across the square. He arrived looking very distinguished in a suit and starched white shirt. Apart from this he showed no signs of wealth, but the way the headwaiter treated him convinced Libby that he was already a person of stature in the town. Although she was now well enough dressed and her hair was tamed with mother-of-pearl combs, Libby still felt uneasy as she was escorted to a table in a velvet-draped alcove. Everyone else was chatting easily, sipping champagne and scooping oysters from the shell as if these were normal activities. Beside them she felt like a country bumpkin, come to the big city for the first time. She found herself glancing across at the next table to see which fork to use.

“What’s wrong?” Mark Hopkins asked her.

Libby blushed. “This sounds stupid, but I’m scared of making a fool of myself,” she said. “It’s so long since I ate in elegant surroundings. I’m not sure I know what to do anymore.”

Mark laughed. “Why worry about it?” he asked. “None of these people do. Look at that old man over there.” He motioned with his head to where a paunchy, florid man was sitting between two beautiful young women in velvet gowns, their high coiffures decorated with sweeping ostrich feathers. “See what he’s using to eat his oysters.”

Libby looked across discreetly and saw that he was clutching his knife like a dagger and stabbing each oyster before bringing it to his mouth.

“Anything goes here,” Mark whispered. “Those girls are from the Pink Palace down the street. They get a hundred dollars a night.”

Libby’s eyes widened as she noted the emeralds on one girl’s neck.

“And see the young woman who has just come in?” Mark whispered. Libby followed the progress of a gorgeous blond who seemed to have been poured into a red satin dress with a tiny waist and enormous hooped skirt. Around her shoulders was a velvet cape which swept to the floor behind her and she demurely fanned herself as she walked with a black lace fan. Mark put his hand up to his beard and muttered into it as she went past. “She is having herself a mansion built over in North Beach with the proceeds of faro dealing. They say she’s the best gambler in the city.”

The word
gambler
sent Libby’s thoughts racing to Gabe. She stared out across the smoke-filled room, wondering where he was and whether she would ever see him again. Then she blinked and her heart lurched as she saw him. At first she thought her eyes were playing tricks, but as he stood for a moment surveying the scene, she realized that it was truly Gabe. He stood in the doorway leading to a back room, looking even more handsome than she remembered him. He was wearing evening dress with a white ruffled shirt. A diamond stickpin sparkled at his throat. A red satin-lined cape flowed behind him. Libby felt as if she couldn’t breathe as he started to walk across the restaurant toward her. He was coming closer to her table. She wanted to cry out to him. She prayed he’d look her way. Then the miracle happened. He glanced in her direction. She saw him register surprise, a half smile, then with a polite nod he swept on.

Libby got to her feet. “Excuse me one moment,” she said. “I’ve just seen someone I know.”

She hurried out after him. Gabe had stepped into the marble foyer of the hotel as she reached the door after him. A footman sprang to open it for her. She saw Gabe’s cape billow out as he crossed the foyer. She opened her mouth to call out to him, but before the word could come out, she watched a beautiful woman rise from a red leather bench. She watched the woman’s face break into a smile. As if in slow motion, she watched Gabe offer his arm, the woman slip her delicate white hand through the proffered arm and look up at him. Then Gabe bent slightly to give the woman the most gentle of kisses and they swept out together into the night. Libby stood there, her hand on her cheek as if she had been slapped.

She had regained her composure as she sat down again opposite Mark.

“You said hello to your friend?” Mark asked.

“No,” Libby said. “I made a mistake. It wasn’t my friend at all.” She picked up her knife and fork. “This chicken looks delicious,” she said. “I hope I haven’t caused yours to get too cold.”

“To be truthful with you, I do not get too excited over meat,” Mark Hopkins said sadly. “I much prefer vegetables, which are still of disgustingly poor quality in this city. I am hoping you and your gardens will soon remedy that. You’ll be able to keep my new store supplied and become a very rich woman in the process, of course.”

Libby managed a convincing smile, but it was as if she were a puppeteer, operating the strings that moved her mouth. At the end of the meal as Mark Hopkins escorted her back to her hotel he asked, “Have you given any more thought to buying land here? There are still some good bargains, but I doubt whether there will be much longer.”

“Very well,” Libby said decisively. “I’ll take your advice. I’ll have some money sent down to you and you can buy me land. I’m sure I can’t go wrong if I rely on your guidance.”

“You’re a wise woman,” Mark said. “And you won’t be sorry. In fact, if I were the marrying kind, and I’d already made the fortune I intend to make, I’d ask you to marry me—although I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be stuck with an old dodderer of almost forty.”

Libby smiled, touched again by his kindness.

The next day she met with
Señor
Alfonso, the Chilean merchant. He was a little round man with a pencil-thin moustache and soulful eyes. His appearance was of a harmless puppy dog but a few words with him convinced Libby that he was very astute and probably very powerful.

“I have a very good trade going,” he said suspiciously. “How I know you don’t take my trade from me?”

“Señor
Alfonso, I’m just one woman,” Libby said demurely. “I am growing crops to support myself and feed my family. How could I possibly be a threat to you?”

Señor
Alfonso shrugged expressively. “Very well,” he said. “Alfonso will see what he can do for you. Just tell me what you need and Alfonso will get it for you.”

When Libby left him she had put in an order for apple, peach, cherry, and lemon trees as well as grape seedlings and as many fruit and vegetable seeds as he could procure. Feeling well-satisfied, she took the girls shopping and let them choose toys and candies while she treated herself to luxuries like soap and perfume, hair ornaments and silk stockings. They met Ah Fong at the dock, looking very pleased with himself.

“I meet a man from my village,” he said. “He will take letter home for me with money to look for bride. Also I tell him I will need men to work in the fields. Also,” he said, grinning, “I get Chinese spices and noodles and now I eat proper Chinese food again. You wait till you taste, missee.”

Later that day they sailed back up to Sacramento. By the time the first rains came in early November, Libby was installed in her snug little house with new furniture and real carpets on the floor. Potatoes and winter cabbage, turnips and beets were planted in newly dug ground. A shipment of fruit trees and grape vines was on its way from Chile and she enjoyed frequent visits from her Mexican neighbors, learning Spanish as she taught Conchita English. In fact, she would have been truly content for the first time in her life if it had not been for the empty void where her heart should have been.

T
HE RAINS BEGAN
in earnest. When the creek came out of its banks and raced wildly down into the valley sweeping down tree trunks and other debris with it, Libby was glad she had taken Ah Fong’s advice about positioning her house. She sat in front of the fire as the children played with new dolls or did their lessons in newly bought schoolbooks, and sewed clothes for the baby. She was glad she had something to do and something to look forward to, or the future would be impossibly bleak. So she put all her energy into the coming baby, sewing lace around delicate pillows and embroidering coverlets.

How surprised my mother and my governess would be now if they could see that I did finally learn my embroidery stitches, she thought with a smile. Then she was overcome with sadness that her mother would probably never see her new grandchild. For a moment she picked up a pen, intent on letting her mother at least know she was safe. Then she remembered her father’s threats to take the children and have her certified insane. It was better that they not know where she was, at least not yet. She thought of home with longing, especially now that Christmas was approaching—good food, good company, presents and parlor games—and suddenly it wasn’t enough that she was able to provide a warm secure house for her children. She wanted more. She wanted friends and family and a place where she belonged.

With these memories foremost in her thoughts, she put extra effort into preparations for Christmas as she made pies and puddings. She decorated the house with pine branches and red berries and at night after the children were asleep she made doll cradles to match the real cradle waiting for the baby. A box under her bed was full of sugar mice and Chinese teacups, oranges and nuts, hair ribbons and bright beads which she had bought in San Francisco for the children’s Christmas stockings.

At least they will have a happy Christmas, she thought wistfully.

On Christmas Eve she was shelling nuts in front of the fire when a sudden spasm of pain swept over her. She glanced at the little girls, sitting together cutting out Christmas garlands from paper. The second jolt of pain was so strong it made her gasp out loud.

“What’s the matter, Mama?” Eden asked, glancing up.

“Go out to the kitchen and get Ah Fong,” she said, trying not to convey any alarm. “Put on your cape, or you’ll get wet.”

Ah Fong came over right away, his hands feathery from the goose he was plucking. “Missee want?” he asked.

“Ah Fong, go to the neighbors and get Dona Con-chita,” Libby said in a low voice.

“Now?” Ah Fong asked, looking out at the rain that was sheeting down. “I not finish goose yet.”

“Now,” Libby said firmly. “I think the baby’s coming.”

Ah Fong looked at her suspiciously. “Ahh!” he said. “I go now. Take mule, not horse—too much mud.”

“Yes, take the mule,” Libby said, trying to talk and breathe at the same time as the next pain shook her. She went through to her room and paced up and down, unwilling to go to bed while the pains came quicker and quicker. At last they were coming so fast and strong that she undressed herself and lay down, the sweat pouring down her face. She fought not to cry out and frighten the children.

Her first two deliveries had been a blur of pain and there had been a doctor and nurses hovering around her all the time. She was very conscious that both the girls had been small babies and this baby was in no way small. The pains came faster and faster until she scarcely had time to catch her breath between them. Her abdomen felt as if it was encircled by a steel girdle which was being squeezed tighter and tighter until breathing became impossible. When the pains got too bad she bit down on the bedsheet to stop herself from crying out and frightening the children.

The children, however, had never seen their mother in bed in the middle of the day and sensed that something strange was going on.

“Mama, can we bring you something?” Eden asked, her Little face tight and pinched with alarm.

“Don’t you feel good, Mama?” Bliss demanded. “You want me and Eden to come and sit with you?”

“Be good children and leave Mommy alone,” she managed to gasp between pains. “Everything’s going to be fine. Ah Fong will be back with Dona Conchita any moment.”

But as the minutes turned to hours and no help arrived, she began to feel very frightened. The storm worsened, the rain drummed against the wooden roof and the wind screamed around the chimney. She felt hot, sticky blood running down her legs and still the baby did not come. She watched the light fade from the sky and told herself that no help would arrive once it got dark.

It got darker and darker.

“Mama, it’s supper time,” Eden whispered around the door. “Bliss is hungry.”

“Can you be a big girl and light the lamp for me?” Libby asked in scarcely more than a whisper herself. “Then you can take sissy over to the kitchen and see what you can find to eat.”

“I can do it, Mama,” Eden said.

Soon soft light filled the room, but it was of little comfort. It occurred to her for the first time that she might die and she wept for the baby she would not see and for the children who would have no parents. She prayed that Conchita would bring them up as her own. She slipped in and out of consciousness, welcoming each brief respite when time was suspended and the world became unreal. It seemed to her that she was a ring of molten iron and was being forged in a furnace, stretched and molded into an impossible shape which must surely break her apart. Outside, the dark red glow of the furnace was the light of an open door and it would take only a small effort to fly toward it.

She was dimly conscious of a last great rending, then fireflies hovered around her face, disembodied heads floated in starlight, and she was suddenly cold.

“Gracias a Dios. Est un nino
,” she heard a distant voice saying and from very far away came the sound of a baby crying. A warm hand was holding hers. Someone was sponging her forehead.

They’re laying me out for burial, she thought and was glad that she was not going to be buried unwashed. That’s good, she told herself and slipped away.

When she heard noises again she opened her eyes very cautiously because the light was fierce and she was frightened to see whether she was in heaven or hell. She was very surprised, therefore, to find that it was ordinary daylight, a weak, wintry sun, shining in through her window. Someone was humming in the next room, a sweet, high voice that she couldn’t quite identify.

“Mother?” she asked, because the voice reminded her of childhood.